Automating Threat Hunts: Building a SOC on a Startup Budget

You don't need a SOC to act like you have one.

That's the mindset that changed how I think about security operations for early-stage companies. Most startups under 50 people assume they can't afford enterprise threat detection infrastructure. Splunk, CrowdStrike, Palo Alto, the list reads like a budget horror show.

But here's what I've learned building out detection capability on essentially zero budget: automation gets you 80% of the way there. The remaining 20% is triage, context, and human instinct. And you can buy the first 80% with mostly open-source tools and a few cloud credits.

This is how to build it.

The Core Problem